Housing Sales Halved in June

THE HAGUE, 18/07/13 - Housing sales were halved in June compared with the year-earlier month. The sales figure was also low compared with May, the Land Register reported Wednesday.

The number of housing transactions totalled 7,224, a 55.4 percent plunge from the 16,210 of June last year. It should however be noted that June last showed a one-off spike of nearly 70 percent, spurred by impending new regulations on conveyance tax in July.

The conveyance tax rate was to have been restored again to 6 percent from 2 percent from 1 July 2012, and buyers therefore wanted to benefit from the tax advantage in the last month at 2 percent. Later, this turned out to be unnecessary as the rate was definitively maintained at 2 percent.

Compared with May, this year’s June sales figure was down 13.3 percent. In May, 8,330 homes changed hands.

The number of new mortgages registered in June plummeted by 51.9 percent to 11,244 from 23,383. Compared with May this year (12,629), there was a decline of 11 percent.

The Land Register figures for June give the transactions that were sealed in March as provisional transactions. It takes about three months before these provisional transactions are definitively registered at the Land Register.

The June figures complete those for the second quarter and first half. Compared with 2012, the second quarter showed a drop of 36.1 percent. Over the first half, there was a decline of 22.8 percent from 2012.

The number of transactions dropped compared with June 2012 for all housing types, the sharpest fall being in the terrace houses category (59.8 percent). Compared with the figures for May 2013, the number of transactions also fell for all housing types.

Compared with June 2012, the number of registered homes sold fell in all provinces. The drop was biggest in Overijssel at 61.1 percent and smallest in Drenthe at 49.9 percent. Compared with May 2013, all provinces also showed a decline, greatest in Flevoland at 18.0 percent, and least in Utrecht at 9.4 percent.

The number of executor sales was substantially lower in June at 140, or 40 percent down on the 229 of June 2012. In May, the figure was 156; in April, 141, and in March, 175.